Category: Q&A

Mosaic Art Collective holds a show focused on mini

Founder and Volunteer Executive Director of Mosaic Art Collective (66 Hanover St., Suite 201, Manchester) Liz Pieroni spoke to the Hippo about their “Small Wonders: Miniature Art Show,” which runs until Sunday, Dec. 22, and contains lots of nifty tiny gifts for the upcoming holidays, and how an exhibit comes together. Visit mosaicartcollective.com.

How do you and Mosaic come up with a theme for an exhibit?

At the beginning it was just really myself. Now we have a board of directors that we brainstorm ideas with. I think this year we’re going to cut back a little bit in 2025 and do a show pretty much every other month now. Just needing a little bit of a breather in between getting everything out there and making sure we’re advertising properly. But we come up with a big list of ideas and then from there narrow those down and we think about what we haven’t done in a while, what ideas are kind of trending. Sometimes it’s just an open concept and really open to any kind of medium or theme.

What is the ‘Small Wonders’ exhibit?

It’s an art exhibit that is taking to mind holiday gift buying, so keeping the prices on the lower side, small art for small budgets kind of a thing. We did this last year and the year before and both shows were pretty high-selling shows. I think the smaller size, most people don’t have huge walls to show art or showcase art, but also because the majority of our budgets are pretty pretty tight right now and we’re doing what we can to still get our artwork out there and be able to give gifts of art.

What’s considered miniature for the exhibit?

So for this show, everything is 12 by 12 [inches] or smaller. I think there’s like a 3 by 5. It’s pretty tiny. But for the most part things are around like 6 by 8-ish. It’s not super miniature, but small enough that you can find a little nook in your house to showcase. We do have a couple of sculptures. One of them is a bird made out of recycled materials that you could hang on a tree. So a little ornament. And then we also have a necklace created by Hannah Cole Dahar that I think is mother of pearl and another kind of teal stone.

How do you decide what gets in the exhibit?

All the calls are open calls. Some of the calls are more juried than others. For this show, we try to be as inclusive as possible, so this one has probably a wider range of experience levels and different styles and media. For the most part, this show we’ve just brought everyone in that we could just to bring a huge range.

What made you interested in starting an art gallery?

I moved back to New Hampshire after living away for almost 15 years. Got here, there was nowhere that really was showing contemporary art, and my art is all contemporary art. I don’t do super traditional work. My goal with opening Mosaic was really to make a place that anyone could come and show their work and have a platform to be showcased and be seen.

What does the gallery space look like?

The gallery is one room. We have five art studios off the main room. Those are rented to artists. And then one other gallerist, Amy Regan, who runs a small boutique gallery out of her studio called See Saw Art on Hanover. The gallery itself is one room, we have high ceilings, big windows, lots of natural light, and a kitchen where we have our opening reception food.

—Zachary Lewis

“Small Wonders: Miniature Art Show”
Mosaic Art Collective
66 Hanover St., Suite 201, Manchester
Runs until Sunday, Dec. 22
Wednesday from 2 to 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.; closed Monday and Tuesday
mosaicartcollective.com

Featured image: “Moths and Mountains” by Mariah Sample.

Owner of Venuti Resin Design

Jeanne Venuti, owner of Venuti Resin Design, creates works of art using resin from the ocean. Recently she won a first-place blue ribbon for her work at the Deerfield Fair. Her art will be available at Bedford Handmade on Sunday, Nov. 10, and her work can be found at Manchester Craft Market (Mall of New Hampshire) and Bedford Furniture Consignment. Venuti Resin Design can be found on Facebook, Instagram and Etsy.

Explain your job and what it entails.

I am an ocean resin artist and I make functional art that looks like the ocean.

How long have you had this job?

I actually started making things in 2021 and then started the company in 2022.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

This is actually my second job. My first job is with the Governor’s Recovery Friendly Workplace Initiative. This started out as a hobby, and the story’s kind of funny, but I like to tell it in full because it’s so amusing. I saw it on an ocean resin charcuterie board on Pinterest and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wonder if I could make that?’ I think that’s how most artists start out with an idea. So I bought all the supplies and for some reason I could not make it work; it was runny, the waves weren’t coming out. Two months later I got so frustrated I did what a lot of people do and I started watching YouTube videos, just slowing them down and stopping them every second because I knew I was missing something. Two weeks after I got back from my trip, I was actually able to master the waves and the colors and my friends started buying my art and they’re the ones that told me, they said, ‘Hey, you need to start selling this. People are going to buy it.’

What kind of education or training did you need?

I’m self-taught.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Anything comfortable with an apron. I have ruined many an outfit with resin and also for some reason I always get it in my ear.

What is the most challenging thing about your work, and how do you deal with it?

Time management, because I do have a full-time job as well. So, fitting my art into my regular work day and weekends.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your career?

I wish I had known ahead of time exactly what products to use because I had to test a lot of them before I got the right combination.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

My art takes longer than people think.

What was your first job?

I was a dishwasher at the Roadrunner in Epping.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

The only person getting in your way is yourself. —Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: The DSM V. I was a Psychology major.
Favorite movie: Dirty Dancing
Favorite music: ’80s music.
Favorite food: I’m half Korean, half Italian, so Italian and Korean food are my favorites.
Favorite thing about NH: The seasons.

Featured photo: Jeanne Venuti. Courtesy photo.

A look at New Hampshire 12,000 years ago

Dr. Robert Goodby is a Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University. He earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University and will be presenting his program “12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State” on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Peterborough Town Library, about an archaeological survey for the new Keene Middle School that brought to light one of the oldest Native American sites in New England. Goodby’s book A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History is available from the Harris Center for Conservation Education (harriscenter.org).

How far back do human settlements go in New England?

The site I’m going to be talking about is the oldest dated site in New England. The date we have, it’s a radiocarbon date, is 12,600 years ago. The sites from this time period are relatively rare. We call this time period the Paleo-Indian period; it basically means old Indian period, and it’s the first period of human occupation here. … Of all the sites that we know about in all of New England, there are maybe one or two sites that are as old as the one in Keene that I’ll be talking about, but none that are older.

Are there any sort of indications that would lead you to think that a spot possibly contains an older human settlement?

You have to sort of work with geologists and recreate what the landscape was like at the end of the Ice Age and sort of understand it from that perspective. In Keene what we had was a nice high, dry, sandy terrace overlooking a river that would have given people a really good view to the south where they would have been able to watch the movement of game animals, particularly caribou, who were here at that time. There are some basics. All people need water, so the sites are close to water. Nobody likes to live on wet ground, and so you’re looking for nice dry sandy soil. Nobody likes to live on a slope or on land covered with boulders. So you look for the level dry, more or less rock-free areas that are close to water, and that’s where the sites tend to be.

What artifacts can be found at a site?

…We have stone tools, and we have over 200 of them. We also have burned pieces of animal bones, some of which have been identified as caribou. … [W]e think this was a wintertime occupation, and the winters back then were brutal, so people would have been hunkering down in their tents, eating food that they had stored up during the fall and just waiting for spring to come.

Is there anything that you’re still looking for? Something you hope to find?

That’s one of the things I love about archaeology is every time you’re looking at a site and starting to do excavation you really have no idea what might turn up. It’s really sort of the surprises that make it special and the idea that you don’t always know what you’re going to find. …

Anything else you’d like to mention about the talk or ancient sites in New Hampshire?

Just that we have a very long Native American history in the state and it hasn’t ended yet. We still have people here who are descended from the original inhabitants. And so it’s a very interesting story that’s still unfolding. The people who were here when the Europeans arrived, and the people who are still here, are the Abenaki. … [T]here is no evidence in that more than 12,000 years that the Native Americans here ever abandoned this area or that they were ever pushed out by someone who came from somewhere else until the Europeans arrived. So the more archaeology we do, the more we see that we just have continuous Native American presence here from, you know, almost 13,000 years ago all the way up to today. …

—Zachary Lewis

“12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State”
Hosted by Friends of the Peterborough Library
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough
Info: Contact Rebecca Enman, 924-8040. Visit nhhumanities.org/programs.

Featured image: Dr. Robert Goodby. Courtesy photo.

How power changed rural New Hampshire life

Steve Taylor is a lifelong scholar of New Hampshire agriculture and rural life. He has been a daily newspaper reporter and editor, freelance writer, dairy farmer and for 25 years served as the state’s commissioner of agriculture. He was the founding executive director of the New Hampshire Humanities Council and in recent years has been an active participant in its Humanities to Go program. Steve spoke to the Hippo about his program “Late in Arriving, How Electricity Changed Rural New Hampshire Life” that he will give on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. at St. John Episcopal Church Parish Hall in Dunbarton. The event is hosted by the Dunbarton Historical Society.

Can you give a brief overview on what you talk about regarding electricity in rural New Hampshire?

The period between World War I and the middle of the 1950s was a time when there were two distinct civilizations in the state of New Hampshire: those who had electricity and those who didn’t. Those who didn’t lived almost the same as people would have lived in the 1890s. That means having to fetch water, run kerosene lamps, use privies, wash clothing by hand … as late as 1936, nine out of 10 rural residents of New Hampshire did not have electricity. But the coming of the New Deal with the Rural Electrification Administration addressed that problem. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was campaigning in 1932, promised that the federal government would get behind electrification of rural United States, all over the country. … what is now known as the New Hampshire Electric Co-op … came in December 1939 in the little town of Lempster in Sullivan County. And it’s very, very amazing today to think how they accomplished so much, given the difficulties of the wartime economy, shortages of labor, shortages of materials so that by 1950 rural New Hampshire was largely wired and served by electricity.

Did the rural communities and people without electricity want electricity? Did they know how beneficial it would be to their lives?

Certainly, yes, the majority of people did. There were some holdouts. There were guys who milked their cows by hand and they said that was good enough for them. There were people who cut ice from the local pond and put it in an ice box and they thought that’s all they needed. Some people heated and cooked with wood. … But the majority of people jumped at the chance to have electric service brought in. And it was very remarkable because in order to qualify for an REA loan you had to have three potential customers signed up per mile and in order to sign up they had to put up five dollars … but there were some people that just couldn’t come up with five dollars and they did it with IOUs; eventually got it done. …

Does access to the internet mirror the issue with electricity?

There are echoes of that time today where you have people that don’t have high-capacity broadband service if they have any broadband service and that is a big, that’s a defining thing for many rural residents. … [I] n the little town where I live and the next town over they’ve gotten together and they’re getting some kind of grant support to have a company come in and string the fiber optic cable to get that service level raised.

Do you know the last place that got electricity in New Hampshire?

Hart’s Location in the White Mountains, a very, very small town, the last town to be wired was 1968.

Would you want to speak on New Hampshire Humanities?

We got it started back in the ’70s. It was just a little tiny venture in the early days… There’s a lot of emphasis on history, on literature, well some of it is more sociology I guess you’d say, but it’s a very remarkable organization what they do. I specialize in rural and agricultural history.

—Zachary Lewis

Late in Arriving, How Electricity Changed Rural New Hampshire Life
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m.
Where: St. John Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 270 Stark Highway North, Dunbarton
Info: nhhumanities.org; Alison Vallieres, 774-3681

Featured image: Steve Taylor. Courtesy photo.